


[Insert Witty Title Here]

by cynnamon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 08:32:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5241686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynnamon/pseuds/cynnamon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dexter Grif knew his life sucked. What he didn't know was which part of it sucked more: before or after being drafted into the military. (Character building/background story fic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introductions

**Author's Note:**

> Dexter Grif is somehow one of my favourite fictional characters which means that I somehow wrote 32 pages of fic analyzing him, my ideas on his backstory, and his relationships with the other characters. This fic mostly focuses on his relationship with his sister and Simmons, though I have plans for more with focus on Tucker, Donut, etc. If anyone's actually interested in hearing more about my dumb ideas I might even write it.

Nothing was harder for Dexter Grif than waking up. It had always been like that for him. Infants need an intense amount of sleep and he never seemed to outgrow that. Though, for Grif, it seemed that failing to outgrow childhood was something of a theme. When he was a kid he never fought his bedtime. He often conked out even before it. Waking him up, however, was as nightmarish a task as it was for any other child. When he became a teenager his resistance to waking grew, if anything, and his curfew remained as early and self insisted as ever. It wasn’t until he started working night shifts that he truly knew what it was like to watch the sun set. By this time sleeping was less a hobby and more a need. It wasn’t about dreaming, or snuggling cozily under warm covers. He felt it in his bones now. It was always there, lurking, threatening to pull him under. It enticed him. Snuck its way into his waking hours until every moment was plagued with the thought of it.  


_I just want to sleep_.

He told himself he’d slept so much he’d become addicted to it. He told himself it was the long hours. He told himself to ignore it. Though he had no problem sleeping as much as he could. Sleep may be betraying him but it was still his best friend.

The problem with this was that the waking world still needed him. Kai needed him. If it wasn’t for her he’s sure he’d sleep forever quite happily. But it was for her, it was all for her, and so he forced himself into waking. 

There was one good thing about the world of the living, however: food. It was hard to say which of his two great loves he loved more. Sleep was inviting but food was fulfilling. Sleep never did fulfil him quite like he wanted it to. Food didn’t either but at least he didn’t walk away from it feeling empty. 

Well, not entirely. 

“You’re so fat.” Kai complained, coming home to find him in a bed of pizza boxes, chip bags, and soda cans. “If you don’t pick this shit up you’re gonna attract more bats.”

Grif froze. “What?”

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “What? Are you gonna start crying like a baby again?”

“No one’s crying.” Grif said, voice abnormally high, “No one’s doing anything. Except for seeing bats. Do you see bats? Where are the bats?”

Kai made a sound in annoyance.

“Where did you see the bats Kaikaina!?”

“There are no bats!”

“You said there were bats!”

“I did not!”

“I distinctly heard bats! Where are the bats?”

“I said there _would_ be bats not that there _are_ , stupid!” 

“We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Oh my god!” She complained loudly, “Would you quit freaking out?”

“I am not getting bitten again!” He shouted, voice cracking, “I don’t have the money for that shit and you saw what happened to Palakiko!”

“Oh come on. It wasn’t _that_ bad.”

“He fucking died!” 

“Uh, yea… from, like, an overdose or something.”

“An overdose of bat rabies!” 

She made a face. “Bats don’t carry rabies.”

“They do so!”

“Then why would you call them bats if they had rabies? That wouldn’t make any sense.”

“You wouldn’t make any sense!”

“You’re the only one not making any sense!”

He froze again, looking at himself in horror. “Oh god! Is that a side effect of rabies!? Am I bitten already!? I’m too young to die!”

“Pssh! You’re like, totally old and gross.”

“I am not!”

“Uh, yeah, you totally are. And you’re a total baby.”

“Well at least I’m not a slut!”

“Yeah, whatever.” She said making her way to the kitchen. “You’re only jealous because I have a nice ass that everyone wants a piece of and you just have a fat one.”

“Uh, no, I’m pretty sure you’re just a slut. And you’re not so skinny yourself, _sis_.” 

“You’re just jealous because I scored three times tonight which is something not even your football team can manage!” She called from the kitchen. “Haha, suck on _that_!”

“I’m sorry,” He shouted back, “I thought that was _your_ job!”

“Yeah! And I’m fucking good at it!” 

He groaned, momentarily distracted from the bat problem and no longer in the mood to discuss his little sister’s sex life. Not that he ever was. Ever. To bad for him it seemed to be her favourite topic.

“If you’re pregnant again I’m not paying for another abortion.” He muttered not sure whether or not he wanted her to hear it. The truth was, even if he wanted to, he couldn’t afford it. 

Kai was an annoying piece of shit who couldn’t seem to keep any part of her body shut but she knew when to pick her battles. She hadn’t mentioned that he was supposed to be working. 

The problem with loving sleep so much was that you have to wake up and do things and when you don’t, there’s consequences. The problem with loving eating is that whether or not you have food is one of those consequences. 

There was this movie he could remember kinda liking about some girl who took care of her kid sister all by herself by working at one of those shitty fake ass luaus you see everywhere that are so popular among white tourists. He’s pretty sure the actual plot of the thing had something to do with aliens but that was the truest shit he’d seen in the media. 

The luau thing. Not the aliens. Though… aliens were pretty true too. But that’s not the point. The way Grif saw it living as a poor Hawaiian struggling to keep your little sister from dying (though really, getting rid of her is probably harder) pretty much traps you in the tourist industry (Or at least, it did for him.) That or illegal activity which, really, was the better option but, hey… you need _something_ to stop people from asking questioning. (Though, to be honest, he doubted anyone actually gave a shit about them.) 

He wondered distantly if there was another sorry excuse for a luau to apply to or if he’d finally resigned himself to a life a pure crime.

_Well, hey,_ he told himself, _look on the bright side. At least now you know the military will never take you. That option was shit anyway._

He’d laugh to himself bitterly about this some day.

“Deeeexxx!” Kai whined from the kitchen, “You ate all the oreos!” 

“Those are mine you keep your mitts off them!”

“There’s nothing to keep them off of! Your fat ass swallowed them all already!” 

It would be all too easy to respond to that but he really didn’t want to. Instead he just sighed and said, “I’ll pick up some more tomorrow.”

“Sweet!”

“Don’t know what you’re so excited about. You still can’t have any.” 

She snorted. “Kaikaina Grif gets whatever she wants.” 

_Yeah_. He thought. _I know_. 

  
  


~~

  
  


“I don’t want you to go!” She shouted like a child throwing a tantrum. ( _She is a child throwing a tantrum_ , Grif thought.)

Grif sighed.

“Tell them you’re sick! Tell them you can’t do it! Tell them you’re pregnant!” 

“I’m pretty sure my identification reads ‘male’.” He told her sarcastically.

“Guys can have babies!” She whined at him. He was to tired to argue semantics. 

He didn’t respond but this didn’t seem to bother her. She just kept shouting and arguing. He didn’t know what to say. This was all just making him more and more tired.

_I just want to sleep_.

“You _can’t_ go, Dex!” She said, crying now. “What am I supposed to do without you?”

He felt a kind of hollow not even food could fill. “I don’t know.” He whispered. “Go to Tanya’s.”

“I don’t want to go to Tanya’s! I want to stay here with you! Like I always did! You said that you wouldn’t leave me! You promised!” 

One other truth about Dexter Grif: He always knew exactly what to say. That is, if “what to say” is a witty come back, sarcastic retort, or grating complaint about anything in everything. “What to say” didn't cover this. He could live a thousand years and never find the words that were missing from him.

“You promised, you promised, you promised!”

  
  


~~

  
  


Basic training was a bitch. They made him run and fight and train and he thought to himself that he'd die right here on the training room floor before ever even seeing battle. He'd never run in his life, not for anything that took more than five steps, and he was far from agile. 

_There has got to be some other easy to erase, useless, fat ass that has better cardio than me._ Grif thought. He couldn't imagine that he'd actually pass basic. Maybe they'd ship him back to his doorstep with a note saying "keep him". 

They didn't. They made him run, fight, train and forced a talent from him. 

"Where'd you get so good with vehicles?" Another private asked him one day.

"Illegal drag racing." 

The private laughed. He hadn't been being sarcastic. 

They shipped him out. He got a squad. An obsessive compulsive ass kisser with daddy issues and some crazy old guy with dementia or something. Weren’t they just the world’s finest. He wondered if this was the reject squad. Was he really just here to round out numbers after all? Maybe they all were. He didn’t know who was on the other side but from what he gathered from their innuendos and “warning shots” they weren’t much more competent at this than they were. He laughed bitterly.

“What are you laughing at?” The ass kisser asked in a way that managed to sound both insecure and accusatory. He was arguably more annoying than Kai was but he had to admit, that had to be some kind of talent. His real name was Simmons but that just reminded him of KISS which was definitely (albeit ironic) too badass to have any correlation with him. Asskisser fit much better.

“I was just thinking- the guys on the other side of this canyon are probably more incompetent than we are, which is saying something, and yet they’re still probably going to be the thing that kills us. I always thought my death would have more glory. A heart attack, a stroke, hypertension, something! Not _this_!” 

“I’m pretty sure none of those things qualify as _glory_.” 

They were interrupted by their Sergeant yelling (how rare). “Did I just hear someone say that those dirty blues might actually get lucky!? Why I outta… _Grif!_ Was that you!?” 

“Yes, sir!” Simmons (ass kisser) said, ass kissing as usual. 

“Lucky?” Grif asked sarcastically. “I’ve been called lardass since primary school, Simmons cracks under pressure, if not downright fainting (“I do not!” Simmons squeaked), you’re so old and crazy you’ll probably take care of yourself without any of their help, and the quiet guy does nothing but fix our radios. The only reason we’re still alive is because the guy in light blue has a worse shot than we do and so many trust issues the teal, aqua, aquamarine, whatever guy never gets the sniper rifle. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’ve killed their own sergeant already. Not that that guy did much to even the playing field. He sent us _fruitcake_. It wasn’t even poisoned. (“You _ate_ that!?”) What, was he hoping we all had secret peanut allergies he didn’t know about?”

“I _am_ allergic to peanuts.” Simmons whispered in muted horror.

Sarge didn’t actually pay him any attention, he was too busy shouting over him about how he was a dirty traitor or whatever. Until he mentioned the dead blue guy, that is. Then he took a pause to mutter about ninjas. Grif sighed. The last thing he needed was that asskisser _actually_ joining the conspiracy. They were hard enough to deal with when he was only _pretending_ to respect their commanding officer’s opinions.

“You’re right, Sarge.” He agreed sarcastically, “I _am_ a traitor to the red way. I think I’m going to go to my room and think about what I’ve done.”

“That’s what I like to hear, soldier!” Sarge shouted. “As heinous as it is to even conceive the thought of ever liking something said or done by you!” 

Grif rolled his eyes having to struggle _real hard_ to not be too offended.

"If I have permission to speak freely, Sir,” The asskisser spoke up, “You do realize he's just going to take a nap... Don't you, sir?" 

“Permission not granted, private!”

He sighed. “Yes, sir.”

Their sergeant was the only one of them to wear standard red (which was for Sergeants and rookies. Two things that nobody likes. Unless you’re Asskissy McAsskisser of course. [Another thing nobody likes.]). He might have said his name at one point but if he had Grif couldn’t remember it. He was so old and loony that his money was on the fact that he couldn’t even remember it. The only other guy at their base wore a weird brown colour and didn’t say much. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d never said _anything_. He mostly just stood around occasionally fixing something they’d broken or drinking motor oil. Everyone pretty much ignored him until something broke. Half the time Grif forgot he was even there. He was pretty sure no one else really remembered him either. Grif had been with these guys for two months now and already this whole thing was bullshit. His squad was a joke, so was their opponents, they did nothing but the same menial tasks all day. He hadn't even been in one serious battle since basic training. He was more at risk back home in Honolulu than he was in this shitty canyon. Unless you counted the threat of heat stroke. Not that he was complaining. He hadn't wanted to join the army. He'd be dead by now in a real war. He just couldn't quite understand where the punchline was in trading one joke life for another. At least back home he could sleep as much as he wanted, their psycho Sergeant had them wake every morning at 0600. Most of the time they didn’t even run or train or do anything worthwhile. The only purpose seemed to be torturing them into an early grave and getting to say ‘0600’. Asskissy McGee was fine with this, of course. Grif had a feeling this was all a part of his regular schedule. And he knew he had a schedule because he'd spent the last two months trying to enforce his schedules on everyone. 

He even made a bathroom schedule. _A bathroom schedule._

"You have GOT to be kidding me. I can't just _go_ on a timer!"

"Well, you're going to have to."

"This is bullshit!"

"We all need to make sacrifices." 

"How about you sacrifice your insecurities? I’m not following a shit and shower schedule because you're too afraid to let me see your dick." 

There was a beat of silence in which Grif realized that could have been worded better. 

"Just stick to the schedule and we won't have a problem." Simmons said flatly before he turned to walk away. 

"You can't do this!" Grif shouted after him, "This is America! I have rights!" 

"This isn't even Earth, dumbass!"

"Well I'm not following your dumb ass schedule! ... Except for right now because I actually really have to go. But that doesn't count!" 

He was already gone but it wasn't like that argument really needed any rebuttals.

"I can't live like this." He groaned. This wasn't the first crazy idea that Asskissing McCarzy had tried to enact here. He had already created a chores schedule, tried to make them sleep rounds to keep watch as though the idiots on the other side of the canyon actually posed any kind of a threat, taught them all to calculate sleep cycles so that they knew what time to go bed in correlation with when they had to wake up, and created a spreadsheet of what they could eat and when to maximize the usage of their rations. 

There was a lot that Grif could take in this world but being told when to eat and sleep were not two of those things. Something had to change and fast. It was already pretty clear that the two of them would never be getting along.

It was almost alarming how often, since being shipped to Blood Gulch, Grif had looked back on his thoughts and realized how wrong they were and how much he regretted ever making wishes. The universe only ever took them as a challenge to make his life even worse.

They got a new private. 

But before that him and that asskisser actually kind of _bonded_. Ew. No. That was too strong a word and way too weird to think about.


	2. The Worst Bonding Exercise Ever. Of All Time.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Truth was, laughing is easy. It’s feeling it that’s hard. There were three people in the world who could make him forget that. This spastic ass kissing holier than thou dumbass had some how become one of them. More than that, though, there were three people in the world with whom he had ever been truly serious, however rarely. Again, somehow, this guy made the shortlist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some slurs and offensive things said in this chapter (actually, all chapters) and while I cringe just writing them I DO have to bear in mind the source material while writing. Sorry if it makes anyone uncomfortable, I guarantee you it makes me uncomfortable too.

It wasn’t obvious from the first time they met but there was something in spending time with Simmons that was almost familiar. It took him a while to figure out that that was because, in a weird way, he was reminding him of Tanya.  


Prior to life at Blood Gulch Grif had only ever had two friends. Though, perhaps a better term for it was “forced acquaintances.” It sounds pathetic but it was the way he liked it. Food, sleep, cheap cigarettes and alcohol and the bare minimum of social interaction. That was all he needed from life and it was all he ever wanted. In hindsight, that was probably what got him drafted. Take the laziest, shittiest excuse for a citizen with virtually no human attachments and throw him in a box canyon in the middle of nowhere on an alien planet. It’s not exactly bad logic. The only loose ends were the two aforementioned horrific forces of nature, Kai and her best friend, Tanya. 

Kaikaina was dropped into his life when he was somewhere in his early teens and no matter how hard he tried there was no getting rid of her. Tanya showed up somewhere in his early twenties and I guess it took being shipped to an alien planet to shake her. (That, evidently, didn't work on his sister, Grif would find out later.) 

They were annoying and unnecessary and more trouble than they were worth but they were something. (Which, as it turned out, was a word that well described just about everyone Grif’s life accumulated. Definitely _something_.)

Grif was not an affectionate person. Simmons would say that it was because, as a kid, his mother’s affection was erratic and while that may have been true, as far as Grif was concerned, that was not only a load of horse shit (and not just because it was Simmons saying it) but also projecting (absolutely because Simmons was the one saying it.) 

Kai and Tanya were something like exceptions. (But Kai was an exception to everything. Back home she was known as code name: hurricane [amongst other things] and that was true enough. She was definitely a force of nature.) But even so that “something like” still applies. 

The thing about Grif (that probably explains why in roughly thirty years of life he had only collected two people) is that he’s not a very caring person. There were a select few people whose existences he valued and the rest was just collateral damage. His teachers told him he had difficulty connecting with others and expressing his emotions. They said he shut people out and something about compartmentalization. Grif promptly replied with “This is bullshit.” and, true or not, that’s what he stuck to. 

This was not a problem to Grif. To Grif he didn’t _have_ any problems. He simply didn’t care. People were complicated and inconvenient.  He was sarcastic and cynical and didn't often have much good to say. Most others considered this rude, annoying, off-putting, or otherwise unpleasant. He was perfectly okay with that. If other people had a problem with it they likely fell under the category of collateral damage anyway. 

The thing that really made Kai and Tanya different was that they were fine with him being a lazy, wise-cracking loud mouth with more insults than apologies. Or any apologies, really. He really only had one rule: He was fine with you as long as you left him alone and he didn’t have to try and please you. They were okay with this. For the most part. Tanya liked to find… loopholes. 

Tanya was a different kind of spitfire. If Kai was a hurricane, she was the eye of the storm. A steady calmness in the centre of calamity. But definitely still dangerous. She could match Grif’s sarcasm any day and had a special talent for shutting him down.

This is where Simmons came into things, with a lot less tact or talent for it.

“Do you ever wonder why we’re here?” Simmons asked one day as the two of them stood watch atop the base. By that time they’d found themselves in an awkward sort of friendship- acquaintanceship – that the other two would have mocked. 

“ _Lucky number three, have we?”_ He imagined Tan asking with that smirk she always wore, like she knew something you didn’t and wasn’t even hiding that she was laughing at you for it. 

“ _I’m pretty sure that’s not how that saying goes.”_

“ _You’re right. It’s more_ unlucky _for them to be stuck with you.”_

“ _In what world does that response even match my statement?”_

She’d laugh the small laugh she gave every time she dismissed his blunt rebuttals and sarcasm. “ _Come on, Dex._ Something _has to be lucky. Heavens knows you’ll never make it to seven.”_

Grif answered his question with a response pre-prepared. He’d never answered that question out loud before but he’d put a lot of thought into it. The second time he’d ever met Tanya she’d asked him the exact same thing.

As it turned out they weren’t exactly the same. He wasn’t answering his question. He was answering hers. Still, from that moment on whenever their traits crossed even slightly he thought of her.  
“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

That was another difference between them: Tanya would have found a way to make him, whether he realized she was doing it or not.

The truth was they didn’t have much in common- Tanya was headstrong, self assured, and grounded. Simmons was obsessed with obedience, the most  insecure person he’d ever met, and completely spastic. Tan could talk him into corners with a precision that could only come from her background in psychology. Simmons was as bad at holding his end of a battle as Grif was and he highly doubted any psychiatric history involved him as the psychologist. Tanya could talk him into trying. Simmons had never inspired him to do anything. Still, there was a comfortable familiarity in the banter.

Almost all conversation with Tanya had been banter. Grif liked it that way and she was good at it. This made conversation with Simmons come easily which was pretty rare for Grif. Most of the time talking to others took _effort_. An effort he hated putting into it and so rarely did. It took him a while to realize that with Simmons this wasn’t true. It was familiar. Ritual. Enjoyable, even (though he’d never admit it). No one but Kai and Tan had ever carried conversations with him as long as Simmons would. No one else _liked_ to. Most everyone else treated him like he was insane. 

“ _The first time I met you you were accusing the manager of a super marker of some sort of Oreo conspiracy.”_ Tanya would remind him every time he’d treated the idea with incredulous.

“ _He’s in on something. I know it.”_

“ _Yeah.”_ She’d say sarcastically. “ _You have a tight grasp on all of your marbles.”_

Simmons matched his crazy with crazy of his own. Tanya never accomplished that unsarcastically but he’s not sure who to award the points to there. Either way, both of them managed to root themselves into his life. And deeply. Something had to be awarded to them for managing _that_ (heaven knows the award wasn’t simply his company.)

Truth was, laughing is easy. It’s feeling it that’s hard. There were three people in the world who could make him forget that. This spastic ass kissing holier than thou dumbass had some how become one of them. 

More than that, though, there were three people in the world with whom he had ever been truly serious, however rarely.

Again, somehow, this guy made the shortlist. 

  
  


~~

  
  


Grif had only planned on going to the bathroom. Despite the glaring obviousness that _no one else gave a shit_ about his stupid bathroom schedule Simmons remained insistent upon it. He’d actually taken to _keeping watch_ to ensure no one went outside their designated times.

But that wasn’t even the craziest part of this. 

“You are _way_ too obsessed with this!” Grif had hollered earlier that day upon being caught attempting to sneak in outside his designated time.

“No.” Simmons had insisted, “I’m _dedicated._ There’s a difference.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re just insane.”

“Get out of the bathroom, Grif!”

“You’re not even using it!”

“Of course I’m not, this isn’t my home.”

Grif stared at him. “What?”

“Why would I use a bathroom that I’m not familiar with? I don’t know what’s in there. It could be contaminated, or dangerous, or-”

“Are you telling me that you’re making us follow this psychotic shit system and _you’re not even using it!?_ ”

“Just get out of the bathroom before I tell Sarge who it was that got peanut butter all over his favourite shot gun.”

“Jesus Christ!” 

So here he was, awake at _one o’clock in the fucking morning,_ trying to sneak into his _own damn bathroom_ because that crazy idiot wouldn’t let him take a crap in a bathroom he had _no intention of using_. 

_I hate him so much_. Grif thought to himself, _I just want to_ _take a shit and_ _go the fuck back to sleep._

By the time he made it outside the bathroom door the world was starting to refocus itself out of the sleepy delirium he’s been in. That was when he realized that something wasn’t right.

His first reaction was to panic. This was a war, after all. A shitty excuse for a war but a war none the less. He didn't question why it was taking place in their bathroom. He rushed through the door, rifle in hands, to, well... die, probably. He hadn’t even suited up before leaving the bedroom. It was a mark of glory that he’d even remembered that he was never supposed to leave without his rifle. When he got through the door he saw that there was no need for it. There were no enemy soldiers. Just Simmons, the sound of his broken sobbing, and a shattered mirror. 

Still full of adrenalin for a battle he was not fighting, nothing made sense. His body told him to move but his mind screamed at him ‘where?’ and questioned what exactly a rifle was going to do to help anything. His teammate was crying, punching an already broken mirror, and probably already in serious pain. A shot from a rifle wouldn’t help anything, no matter what Sarge would have said on the matter. He forced himself to drop his gun thinking that he could draw attention to himself and away from whatever kind of meltdown was happening. It didn’t work. 

A part of Grif’s brain that never shut down told him to laugh, supplying him with a variety of witty jokes to make at his expense. Another part, as consistently active as the last, told him that he should just go to bed. Sleep made everything better. It was the least active part of his brain, the part he never paid any attention to, that he actually listened to. The part that told him to _care_.

Still full of adrenalin he approached Simmons with as much caution as his adrenaline and panic would allow him.

"Simmons. Simmons. Simmons!" He shouted the last one, unsure if anything would break him from his trance. 

It didn’t break it but it changed its direction. Simmons turned on Grif, throwing a punch at him instead of his own reflection. Not even the adrenalin gave him the speed or agility to dodge that. 

“Ow! Fuck!” Grif shouted, clutching his face where he’d been socked in the jaw.

"Get out!" Simmons shouted. 

“Fuckin’, okay!” Grif shouted, to pissed at being _punched in the fucking face_ to listen to that shitty ass voice of compassion any longer. He turned to leave but he couldn’t. Not really. This all reminded him to much of the nights he’d found his little sister in similar positions. 

The last time he’d walked away from something like this he’d found her passed out with an empty bottle of aspirin.

"Simmons, you have to calm down." 

"Don't tell me what to do, Grif! You aren't my superior." 

"Simmons, look at yourself. Look what you're doing." 

"I don't care." 

"I do." 

Whether it was shock at the lack of sarcasm or the relief in the reassurance of his own worth it deflated him and his anger melting away into heavier tears. He sunk to the floor crying like a girl who'd just miscarried a child she'd actually wished to carry. 

Though, come to think of it, this probably had more to do with abandonment and shitty parenting. He’d seen the effects of that too. When it came down to it, no matter why they were doing it, people always fell apart in roughly the same ways. 

He waited for him to calm down, doubting he’d be heard over all the crying. He sat with him, not really knowing what to do in the mean time. 

_Well this is fucking awkward_. 

He was regretting this decision almost immediately. This was Simmons, not his little sister. What the fuck was he supposed to do next? Make stupid jokes about the circus? Uh, no. He was pretty sure that only helped a very specific set of issues and he was pretty sure that specific set did not apply right now. Simmons hadn't exactly detailed the history of his daddy issues but Grif was 99% certain they didn’t contain any circus content. It would be one heck of  coincidence if they did.

Grif may have seen his little sister fall apart a good many times but that didn’t mean he’d learned what to _do_ about it. That was kind of why he needed Tanya. And if he didn’t know what to say about his own mother’s disappearance it wasn’t likely he’d ever find the words to make Simmons stop bawling like a fucking baby about his own crappy parenting.

Maybe if he snuck out now he could pretend that it had all been sleep walking… 

But the more he actually paid attention the more he began to realize that maybe he’d miscalculated again. He realized that this was the first time he’d ever seen his fellow soldier without his full body armour on, helmet and all, and that maybe there was a reason for the schedule after all. 

He wasn’t afraid of him seeing his dick. He was afraid of him seeing that he didn’t have one.

Well… fuck. 

As things finally began to click in Simmons withdrew into himself and started shouting at him again.

“Get out! Get _out_! Your name isn’t on the schedule! You’re not supposed to be in here!”

“Simmons, I don’t-”

“I said get out of here!”

“But I-”

“ _Get out!_ ”

“Would you quit fucking shouting at me?”

“I told you to _leave_!”

“ _No, god dammit, shut up and talk to me!_ ” 

He stopped. Things were quiet for a moment as Grif processed that he’d _actually gotten Simmons to shut the hell up_. That was one for this history books. That part of his brain activated again, telling him to say that out loud, but the compassionate side told that part to sit down and shut the fuck up. 

“I don’t give a shit about your dick.” Grif told him, “Or, lack of one, or, whatever.”

It was perhaps the shittiest excuse for a statement of encouraging support you could imagine but Simmons’ face contorted in confusion, anyway, like that was an insult he just had to think harder about to understand. Which, given the history of their relationship, wasn’t exactly a surprise. 

Grif sighed heavily too tired to deal with this shit today. “I said I don’t give a shit. As in, I don’t care. As in, get over yourself. You’re not the first trans person I’ve met, and you’re really not all that special so just, stop crying, and, Jesus Christ... do you have anything to bandage your hand with? Because… Jesus Christ.” 

“I don’t, I don’t understand, I-” 

Grif scoffed. “Wait here.” 

They left a med kit in the kitchen. If there was one thing Grif knew intimately it was their kitchen. God damn this guy for making him walk _all the way there_ at _one o’clock in the morning_. 

When he got back Simmons was still standing where he’d been before apparently incapable of processing that he cared more about his hand than his lack of societal approved genitals. 

“Jesus Christ are you still stood there? I’m not moping all this blood up. There’s no way I’m _actually_ becoming the soldier that has to do everything around here. We have a system, Simmons. A system that works. You do all the work, I take the credit for it, and Sarge ignores that either of us have done or said anything. It’s not a perfect system but it works. It’s ours. And it stops me from _actually_ having to do anything. Don’t fuck up a good thing for us....You know what? Never mind. After having said that out loud I immediately realize how stupid that sounds.”

He couldn’t be sure if it was the time, the pain, the blood loss or if the meltdown wasn’t entirely over yet but instead of rambling back in protest like he normally did Simmons just stared, dazed. 

This was a lot less fun when Simmons just stared at him. If you could call it fun to begin with. 

“Just go sit on the fucking toilet so that I can- Jesus how the fuck am I going to get all the glass out of there?” 

Robotically Simmons sat himself down as he was commanded and slowly seemed to blink himself back to reality.

“Give me your hand. But fair warning, I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.” 

“Why are you…?” 

Grif ignored the question and started trying to pull the glass from Simmons’ hand, taking on faith that he’d find his words eventually. Or, hoping he wouldn’t and they could just avoid this bullshit altogether. It didn’t seem likely but if there was one thing Dexter Grif was good at it was holding on to the hope that he could avoid actually doing something.Though, technically, he was doing something right now (that didn’t include eating or sleeping) so maybe that ship had already sailed.

“Holy fuck this must hurt like a bitch.”

“It does.” 

“No kidding.” 

A long time passed before either of them said anything again which was just fine for Grif. He was in the mood for touch-y feel-y bullshit approximately never. Maybe they could skip the heart to heart altogether and things would just go back to the way they should be; Simmons complaining, Grif leaving all his work for Simmons to do, the two of them bickering like cats and dogs, never sharing, and mutually hating each other. Just the way the world intended it. 

That was not the way the world intended it.

The more Grif actually thought about it the more he realized that this was _Simmons_ he was talking about. If he wanted to continue this thing they had going in any sort of comparison to the system they had now he couldn’t just walk in on this, stop him from bleeding to death and say “well, horrible seeing you, good night now, good luck with your crippling self esteem issues.” He’d walked himself into this mess and walking away from it would only leave things more awkward than they were right now and that was fucking saying something. Like, seriously. There had to be some sort of world record for this shit. 

If there was one thing that could make being stuck in this canyon with these people _worse_ it was Simmons being _even more awkward. All the time._

This was very quickly becoming the worst day of Grif’s fucking life. He didn’t know what was worse; knowing that he was about to have this conversation or admitting to himself that if he’d actually followed Simmons’ dumb schedule he could have avoided it. He sighed, swearing to himself this would be the first and last heart to heart he’d ever have here. (This was technically true. It was the first and last in _this_ canyon.)

“Did I ever mention my ex-girlfriend, Tanya?” 

“What?” Simmons croaked and Grif realized that his silence might be attributed to as much physical pain as it was mental or emotional. 

“It’s- just answer the stupid question.”

“I don’t know.” He hissed between clenched teeth, “I don’t keep track of your personal life.”

“That would require me _telling_ you anything about my personal life.”

“You asked the stupid question.” 

Well, he had him there. “Whatever. That’s not the point.” 

“What is the point then?”

“Shut up and let me tell you!”

“Fine! My hand hurts to much to speak anyway.”

“And yet you’re still talking.”

Grif waited for a response but none came.

“Well?” Simmons snapped when he didn’t continue.

“She was my little sister’s best friend. She was a snarky little bitch and things were complicated but we dated for a little while.”

“Very moving.”

“I’m not fucking done.”

“Isn’t your sister, like, ten years younger than you?”

“She has some old friends, okay?”

“Did you just call yourself old?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in pain?”

He grumbled but didn’t say anything he could actually pick out.

“ _Anyway_ , like I was saying, she transitioned before I ever met her so you’re not the first freak I’ve met.”

His face contorted in pain again and Grif had a feeling it wasn’t because of his hand.

Grif stared at that stupid hurt looking expression and, God help him, he actually felt _bad_. This was precisely why he was never fucking awake to see sun down. 

“God I hate this touch-y feel-y crap. I don’t actually think you’re a freak. okay?”

“Do you mean that?” Simmons asked in a tiny whisper.

“I dated a girl with a dick, Simmons, I think I’m passed being afraid of another man’s vagina.” 

Simmons relaxed a little and Grif realized that he’d heard way too few people say that, considering that was the shittiest statement of support ever. Of all time.

“That’s not even what ended things with me and Tanya so really I couldn’t give less of a shit.”

“So you fucked it up all on your own.” 

“That’s not- I never- It was… complicated.”

Simmons gave him a look that implied a sarcastic ‘Really? I don’t believe it!’ and it stalled him for a second because it was the same face Tanya always gave him. He went back to work on picking the miniscule glass shards from his hand feeling suddenly defensive. “It wasn’t even an _actual_ break up. It- She claims I don’t do well when I give things labels. Which is bullshit.”

In his mind he could hear her scoff in protest. “ _Is that true now? Well then, why do you call me your sister’s best friend and not yours, dumbass?”_ Even in his own mind she managed to win. 

“It was complicated, okay? That’s all you need to know.” 

“ _Someone’s_ testy.”

“I’m not testy!”

“I didn’t even _say_ anything.”

“It was implied!”

“It was not implied. How was it implied?” 

“You did the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The head tilt thing!” 

“What head tilt thing?”

“The tilt thing, like she did, when you’re being sarcastic. It’s annoying and pretentious as fuck.” 

He did the thing.

“That thing!” 

“I wasn’t even being sarcastic!” 

“Not _that_ time.” 

He rolled his eyes. “Great defence.” 

“See!” Grif shouted triumphantly. “Just like she’d have done. ‘ _Fantastic defence, Dex_.’ You’re just like her. Holier-than-thou and annoying as _fuck_.”

“Should I be worried that I remind you of your ex girlfriend?”

“Oh, shut up. You’re in pain, remember?”

He was indeed in quite  bit of pain so that did shut him up for a minute. But just a minute.

“Dex?”

“What?”

“That’s your name?”

“What of it?”

He squinted at him. “You don’t look like a Dexter.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. I was expecting something more…”

“More?”

He didn’t say anything.

“You were going to say Hawaiian weren’t you?”

“No.”

“Yes you were.”

“I wasn’t.”

He was turning red.

“Wow, Simmons. I didn’t know you were so racist.”

“I’m not racist!”

“Sure you aren’t. You just think native Hawaiians can’t have white names.” 

“I didn’t say that!”

“It was implied.”

“Stop saying I’m implying things I’m not!

“Stop implying things then.”

“You are such a child.”

“Okay, what’s your name then?”

“What?”

“What’s your name? I’m not just spilling personal information for nothing here. You need to at least try and help out. What did I say earlier? I’m not gonna be the one pulling all the weight around here.”

“It’s a miracle you can pull your own around.”

“Hah hah, really funny, kiss ass. Are you gonna tell me what you call yourself or not?”

It took a moment but he answered. “Richard.” 

Grif stared at him a second before bursting into laughter. “Dick. Because your missing one. That’s hilarious.” 

“ _No_.” He snapped, “Because it was the name of my Dad’s father.” 

“Wooww. You can name yourself anything in the world and you choose your _grandfather_. On your _dad’s_ side. You really do have some daddy issues, don’t you?”

“It’s not as stupid as the name _Dexter_.”

“I didn’t _pick_ mine. And, seriously? Your name is _Dick_ and you think _Dexter_ is bad?”

“Ow! Fuck!” Simmons hissed in pain, yanking his hand away from Grif’s meddling effectively hurting himself even more than Grif had. “Pay attention to what you’re doing!” 

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have punched the mirror. You see what happens when we think things through, Simmons? You could always change your name again.” 

He just grit his teeth against the pain and didn’t respond.

As the silence loomed, Grif silently picking glass shards from one severely fucked up hand,  the air of normality that had been building dissipated turning back into an awkward tension. Grif started speaking again just to fill the silence.

“Like I was saying before, she transitioned but she kept the dick and I didn’t know that till…” He coughed. “At first I got a little freaked out but... Here’s a tip, Simmons, in cause you ever meet Kai or Tan: Don’t piss them off. Kai might seem like a stupid little slut and Tan a snarky little know-it-all bitch but Kai packs a punch like Chuck fucking Norris and could probably bench press _me_ and Tan does mental warfare like some sort of evil fucking overload. It’s dangerous and scary and God knows why I’m in this hell hole instead of them. Well, actually, they belong in a much more competent army than I do.”

“Wow, Grif.” Simmons said, still gritting his teeth. “That was almost… nice. Almost.”

“I have my moments.” He finished picking the glass from his hand and found the disinfectant. “I might be a dick but I’m not _that_ much of one. Not anymore, anyway.” 

“Th-”

“If you knew me as a teenager, though, you’d be _fucked_.”

He did the thing again. “How reassuring.” 

Grif laughed. “You gonna cry about it?”

“Shut _up_.” 

“You’d like that.”

“Yes. I would.” 

“To bad.” Grif said beginning to wrap his wounds. But he didn’t actually say anything else. He was to close to being finished, to close to _sleep_ , to open up another can of worms.

“Are you going to tell everybody?” Simmons asked quietly, dashing the hope that they were done here.

As usual, Grif decided to deflect it through sarcasm. “Like who? Sarge? The blues? The blues already want to kill us, I don’t see how your gender identity would change anything, and I’m pretty sure our CO is obligated to have our medical records. Unless your gender’s legally changed I don’t have to lift a _finger_.”

It backfired. The look of horror on his face let Grif know that that thought had not occurred to him.

His ability to fuck things up in the smallest amount of time possible had _got_ to have been one of his greatest assets. Backpedalling was a talent of some sort, right? “Oh, come on. There’s nothing that could possibly make him hate you more than me and he needs _someone_ to kiss his ass.” That didn’t seem to make it better. “Have you listened to that guy? I doubt he’d remember it if he read it anyway. And this _is_ a war zone. Nobody would question us burying his body.”

“Grif!” Simmons shrieked, looking around as though his comment would somehow get them in trouble.

“Relax. If you’re helping anyone burying anyone’s body, it’s mine. He shot at me three times. _Today._ ” 

“You were being insubordinate.” 

“I said that shot guns weren’t that cool! _Anyway_. I think I’m done. Mostly. Like I said, I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. You probably won’t be able to use it for awhile but its use should come back. Eventually. Though, uh, if you could find anyone to stitch it… I’m going the fuck back to sleep.” 

“Thanks, Grif.” Simmons said in a small voice.

“Yeah. Whatever.”

Simmons continued to stare at him like there was something left to be said.

“What?” 

“Let’s agree to never talk about this again?”

Grif considered it. As much as he’d like to go back to sleep and forget any of this ever happened he’d just been forced into a _heart to heart_. He couldn’t let this go with no pay off. And he’d gained a _lot_ of new material tonight.

“I’ll strike you a deal.”

Simmons blanched. 

“You can talk to me about your shitty problems as long as I’m allowed to make fun of you for crying like a baby when you do it.”

“How is that a deal?”

“I wont make fun of your dick. Just the fact that you named yourself after one. And that you like to cry like a baby while we’re all asleep. And while you’re supposed to be keeping watch, too. Tut tut Simmons, what would Sarge say?”

“You’re an ass.”

“Is that a deal?”

“Your little sister can wipe the floor with you and you’re scared of your ex-girlfriends penis.”

“It’s a deal then. Now go the fuck to sleep. And quit with the bathroom schedules. This could have been avoided if you _hadn’t_ made them, you know.”

“Fine.”

“Now get out of here. I came in here for a reason.”

“I thought you said you were going to sleep.”

“A master of sleep can do many things at once, Simmons.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“You lock yourself in the bathroom and cry while punching your own reflection.”

“I fucking hate you.”

Grif smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Simmons. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”


	3. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As far as he could tell life became exponentially better at the cost of  
> three things; 1.) Deep thought. 2.) Thoughts of the past. 3.) Caring  
> much about anything. He’d effectively broken the rule against doing  
> any of these things by doing _all_ of those things over the course of a single hour. It wasn’t one of his  
> shining moments. (Grif remembers some moments from his life before Blood Gulch.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fanfic is a collection of multiple drabbles I'd written placed haphazardly to a semi conclusive plot. This chapter highlights that. Here, have some head canons about Grif's life before Blood Gulch. Also, some real scenes with Tanya.   
> I don't know if I do justice to how awesome she is in my mind but gosh I hope there's someone else out there who enjoys her as much as I do.

“No.” Grif said the next day when Simmons woke him at Sarge’s command. 

“What do you mean _no_?”

“I mean ‘no.’ I am not doing this. Not today.” 

Simmons said a lot of things then that Grif ignored, dozing off again. This was met with more shouting that he continued to ignore. This went on for some time until it was understood that nothing was getting Grif out of bed today. Not a damned thing. 

There was a kind of fatigue that came with nights like the one he’d just had. It was even deeper than the regular exhaustion that he carried with him day by day and it assaulted him with other things that he couldn’t place a name to. It was one of the reasons he had a general rule _against_ the type of thing.

As far as he could tell life became exponentially better at the cost of three things; 1.) Deep thought. 2.) Thoughts of the past. 3.) Caring much about anything. He’d effectively broken the rule against doing any of these things by doing _all_ of those things over the course of a single hour. It wasn’t one of his shining moments. If he could have his way he would spend the next week in a self imposed coma hoping to effectively ignore all the troublesome side effects that accompanied those nights. There was no way that was happening but somehow he’d managed to buy himself a day and he enjoyed revelling in the little victories. Unfortunately, once the rule was broken it tended to remain damaged for a time before he could fix it again with sarcasm and wit. This left a gaping hole of his past wide open inside of him that he could do nothing a close. 

With Simmons gone and the door closed, blocking him from the rest of the world he would have to wake and face again tomorrow, Grif turned over, shut his eyes, and made his best attempt at sleeping the reconstruction of that hole away. Unfortunately the problem just followed him into his dreams.

~~

  
  


"DEXTER." A voice shouted, accompanied by the sound of his door crashing into a wall. Hopefully it hadn’t done any more damage to the shitty excuse for a house he had lived in. He’d forgotten to check. "What the fuck are you doing?"

He gave a noise in protest, having been startled from his sleep. "Absolutely nothing. Isn't it beautiful?"

"No, it's not _beautiful_. It's irresponsible and immoral." 

"Immoral?" He mumbled Incredulously. 

"Yes, _immoral_." The very angry memory of Tanya demanded, crossing the room and throwing open the curtains. "You're _drunk_. At three o'clock. On a _Sunday_." 

"I am _not_." He protested with an evident slur in his voice.

"Then what's that empty bottle in your hand?"

"It's just one beer!" He objected. 

She glared at him icily, voice level and dangerously low. "That's a bottle of rum."

He raised the bottle to his face and squinted as though this was a surprised to him. "Oh. Huh. Yeah....I might be a little drunk." 

She let out a slow and steady stream of breath through her nose, the type of sound one makes while contemplating how hard it would be to get away with your murder. 

"At least it's not a Sunday." He offered unhelpfully.

“Yes.” She said flatly. “It is.”

“It’s _Sunday_?” This news seemed to sobered him. 

Tanya sighed in frustration, not bothering to point out that she’d said this just moments before. She sat down on the edge of his bed too tired of this shit to stand any longer and resisted the urge to place her face in her hands. How could someone who had practically raised his sister all alone for this long still be such a _child_?

They sat in silence for a while, the air between them charging more and more by the minute. In the end it was Grif who broke the tension. He spoke in a low mumble, "Is Kai okay?" 

"She's fine." Tanya answered shortly. 

"M'kay." He said halfway between a murmur and a sigh of relief. He slumped back down in his bed again, apparently satisfied.

Tanya most certainly was not. She stood abruptly, ripping his sheets from him and hissed at him in a cold fury, "You left her at the bar. _Alone_." 

"She can take care of herself." He muttered quietly

"No!" Tanya snapped, "She can't! And neither can you, apparently!" 

Grif didn't answer. He just let the bottle he’d been holding slip from his hands and listened to the sound it made as it crashed to the floor. 

Tanya sighed again heavily, running her fingers through her hair. "I'm not cleaning that up." 

“Didn’ ask you to.” 

The silence grew again and when Tanya spoke next there was something broken in her tone. Something pleading. “I try to be patient with you, Dex. I try to understand. To not get angry. To do my best so that you do too. But you need to pull yourself out of whatever it is you’re going though. _Kai_ needs you to. She might be eighteen but she still needs you.”

“She’s doing _fine_.”

“Do you really think so?”

He didn’t answer.

"What is all this for, Dex?" She asked quietly. The questioned sounded hollow. Like she was already tired of pleading.

"What do you mean?" 

"You haven't been sober since Monday." 

"Huh." He said, as if the news surprised him. 

"Yeah. Huh." 

"Maybe I've finally become an alcoholic.” He offered. “You always said I'd end up one of those." 

"It wasn't a _challenge_."

"I still win." 

"Win what, Dex?" The question was intended to be hypothetical. He answered her anyway. 

"The shittiest lottery in all of Hawaii." He murmured, face smashed against his pillow making it just hard enough to hear.

"What?"

"Just let me sober up." He mumbled, turning his face so he was audible. 

"And then what?" 

"I think I want to talk to you."

She was silent for a moment. "Just how drunk _are_ you?" 

He laughed then, short and without humour. "Get outta my room. And shut the blind, would you?" 

  
  


~~

  
  


The next morning Grif was awoken by a knock on the door. He dragged himself out of bed and opened it to find Tanya. He sighed. He'd kind of hoped that yesterday had all been a bad dream. 

"Kai, I'm going out!" He shouted over his shoulder. 

"Yeah, whatever!" 

"Do me a favour and try not to get pregnant before I get back!" 

"I can't make any promises!" 

He sighed in resignation and closed the door behind himself. 

"Come on.” He said, marching off before she could open her mouth to protest. “I can't do this sober."

  
  


~~

  
  


"Do you ever wonder why we're here?" Grif asked. It was the first thing he'd said since they'd gotten there and he'd already downed three shots. She had asked him the same question the second day that they met. He never did answer.

"Because you're on some sort of downward spiral?" 

He laughed. "Not here. _Here_." He stressed, spreading his hand as if gesturing to the great expanse. 

She had gathered that already but she didn’t see the point in pointing that out to him. Instead she continued to opt for sarcasm. "Dexter Grif, are you having an existential crisis?" 

"Just answer the damn question." 

"Three shots and you're already getting philosophical. I feel like this is my fault, somehow." 

The bartender showed up with another drink for him and he drained it before muttering, "You're the worst." 

"Why do _you_ think we're here?"

He shook his head. "I asked you first." 

“No, actually. You didn’t.”

He ignored that.

She sighed. "Does there really need to be a reason?" 

"Yes." He insisted. 

"Why?" 

He didn't offer any answer. 

"Why is this so important to you, Dex?" 

He didn't answer that question either. He just waved down the bartender who looked at him warily before pouring him another drink. 

Tanya sighed again. "I don't know why we're here and even if I did I don’t know if I could tell you. It’s one of those questions you need to find the answers to on your own. It’s one of life’s big questions that everyone’s so desperate to find the answer to but I don’t think it’s a one size fits all question. If we _could_ answer it, I don’t think anyone would be satisfied." 

He gave the impression of deflating and she wondered if she should have tried to offer something more encouraging. He’d been falling fast and the fear that he was approaching the bottom was very very real.

"Why is this so important to you?" She asked again. 

He answered this time in a small defeated whisper with three words she had not been expecting. "I got drafted." 

The silence seemed to ring.

"What?" She asked though it sounded more like a demand. A demand to say anything but what she thought she’d just heard. 

He only gave a short breath of laughter before downing the rest of the drink the bartender had served him. 

She wasn’t ready to accepted that she’d heard him correctly. Seeing this he pushed onward, joking in a voice completely void of humour. "Ironic, isn't it? Just last week I sat in this very seat mocking the whole thing. Bastards must of heard me."

"When were you planning to tell us?" She demanded.

He shrugged having no answer to that.

“When do you leave?” She was shouting now, completely frantic.

“Tuesday.”

“ _Tomorrow_ is Tuesday.”

“Oh. Yeah. Right.” His voice was completely dead. Tanya felt as though her whole world had been ripped out from in under her. This explained everything. She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh, cry, or punch him. 

“ _Tomorrow?_ ” She demanded, “And you weren’t planning on saying _anything?_ What the fuck were you expecting to do with Kaikaina!?”

“I donno.” He answered honestly in the hollowest voice she’d ever heard.

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“I donno.”

“Aren’t you going to try and _do_ something?”

“I donno.”

“Don’t you have _anything_ else to say?”

“No.” He said. “Not really.”

She clenched her teeth fighting to contain her rage and anxiety. She couldn’t lose her composure. Not now. She _never_ lost her composure. Not in any way she didn’t control. But she had, she’d lost control of everything, and try as she might she couldn’t bring herself to care. He had never seen her like this before, not in the five years they’d known each other. Very few people had. But how could she care about something like that when she was losing something that was so much more important?

“I’m so sorry, Grif.” She whispered.

He turned to look at her, blinking with eyes as dead as his voice. 

“You never call me that.”

  
  


~~

  
  


Grif opened his eyes with the feeling that he might vomit. He hadn’t thought of that conversation since the day he left there and the memory was too much for him to handle. He felt tired and angry and sick and he wanted nothing more than to drown himself in rum and whiskey. But that would take too much energy, that would take leaving his room, and so instead he rolled back over and again tried to sleep. 

Maybe, this time, he could escape his memory. 

That was wishful thinking.

  
  


~~

  
  


Grif stared at the prices in front of him in horror. 

"What the fuck!?" He shouted angrily, turning to find another customer to share his outrage with him. "Do you fucking see this!?" He shouted at a girl stood a few feet away from him. 

"Um...?" 

"I want to speak to the manager!" 

"I don't actually work here." 

"That's no excuse, lady!" 

She blinked at him. "Are you okay...?" 

"No I am not okay! This is an outrage! A violation of my rights as a human being!"

She squinted at him, looking back and forth between him and the cooler. Was he... Talking about the milk? "What are you talking about?" 

"I'm talking about my right to a glass of fresh milk, freshly poured and waiting for an Oreo to come and complete life's greatest love affair of cookie and beverage!" 

The girl couldn't begin to know how to respond to that. "I'm pretty sure that isn't an inalienable right defined in any statute. Or any constitution. Anywhere." 

He wasn't listening to her. He just continued shouting, voice cracking with the height of his pitch. "They're milk's favourite cookie! It's how things were made to be! Like peanut butter and chocolate! Or peanut butter and jelly! Or peanut butter and _anything_!" 

"Um... okay." 

"No, _not_ okay! Just _look at this!_ "

"Did you want me to get the manager...?"

" _Yes!_ " 

Grif turned back to stare at the milk as the girl departed, whispering to the gallons of milk reassuringly. "It's okay, buddy. I won't let these corporate bastards keep us apart. I'll fight for you." 

The girl wasn't exactly sure what to say to get the manager's attention. "Um... There's some crazy guy shouting about his constitutional rights to Oreos in the milk aisle...? He says he needs the manager." 

The worker (manager?) sighed deeply, put down what he was doing and trudged his way to where Grif was still mumbling to the milk in their containers. The girl, despite her better judgement, followed. She needed to know how this one played out. 

"Grif-" The worker/manager started. 

"You!" He shouted, turning to the worker angrily. The worker just sighed again. So… this happened… often?

"I should have known it was you!” Grif shouted at him, “You did this, didn't you!?" He looked to the girl, "This bastard's been against me from the start."

She nodded as though this was a completely sane declaration to make and made it her challenge to diagnose him.

"Look." The worker said, "if you don't shut up I'm going to have to kick you out. You're disturbing the peace." 

"How could you be this cold hearted?" The question sounded so serious a girl had to wonder  if this was still about Oreos. 

"I told you, I can't take the double stuffed Oreos off the market. I don't care if you think it's blasphemy, I don't have the authority to make that decision."

"This isn't about those monstrosities!" He turned to the girl again, "They completely mess up the equilibrium." He explained, "It's about _this!_ " He shouted, pointing at the price tag. 

The worker looked to where he was pointing and clued in. "Oh. Yeah. The price went up."

"Two dollars!?" 

The worker shrugged. "Sorry, man. I don't make the prices, I just tag them." 

"You son of a bitch." 

The worker rolled his eyes, gave up on him, and walked back to whatever he'd been doing before the interruption.

"This isn't over, Kekipi!" Grif yelled after him. 

"Whatever." The worker- Kekipi- muttered. 

When he was out of sight Grif kicked at the cooler angrily. "Fuck!" 

The girl watched him in silence, still utterly unsure of what had just happened but closing in on a decision about his mental psyche. Grif stuffed his hands in his pockets, angrily tearing his change from them, counting and then recounting, checking his pockets again for any coins he'd failed to find the first time. The girl wasn't sure he knew she was still watching but the situation suddenly seemed a whole lot less funny. If, you know, diagnosing a person exhibiting signs of _some_ sort of psychosis could be considered amusing.

"Cold hearted bastard." He muttered. "Couldn't tell the difference between an Oreo and a Cream-O still in their packaging." 

It was no use. No matter how many times he counted the number was the same every time. He had $5.32. It was enough last week but milk was now selling for $7. He could say goodbye to milk and cookies. If he was going to be buying milk he was going to have to start buying a lot less of it. 

"Are you... Going to be okay?" The girl whispered. 

"Wha? Yeah. Whatever. " He muttered, not paying her any attention. He was too busy making a mental list of the other things he needed to buy and how this would affect his future budgeting. He'd take up extra shifts. Do extra races. Quit smoking or drinking or _something_. He wasn't taking Kai from gymnastics for _two dollars_. 

"If you're short I have some money I could loan you." She offered. 

"Mhmm." He muttered, obviously having no idea what she'd just said to him. 

She reached into her pockets to find herself a few dollars and then approached him, dropping it into the hand he held his money in. 

"Wha?" He asked, looking up from his daze. 

"You're short, right?" 

"I don't want your charity, lady." He protested. 

"It's not charity." She insisted. 

"Fuck you." He said, taking the two dollars with his free hand and trying to hand it back to her. 

She held up her hand in protest. 

"Pay me back later." 

"How the fuck am I supposed to do that?" He asked. "I don't know who the hell you are or where you came from." 

"Korea, originally." 

He squinted at her in annoyance.

"Get the milk for your Oreos." She insisted. "I'll buy one less beer tonight." 

"I don't want your money." He insisted. 

"Okay then. Let's say it isn't for you, then. It's for the milk and the Oreos. That guy's trying to keep them from their love affair, right? I don't want to see that happen. Let's say I'm a hopeless romantic."

"That's bullshit." Grif said. 

The girl shrugged. "I don't think I'm the one here that's crazy."

He retorted at her but she wasn’t listening anymore. As impossible as it seemed, she thought to herself that there was a possibility she could actually makes sense of this.

She took a stab in the dark. "Your sister needs her calcium." 

Fear spread across his features and he involuntarily dropped all his change.

"Fuck!" He swore, shifting his glance between the floor, the exit, and the stranger. How the fuck did she know that? Who _was_ she? Children's aid? The Feds? Who fucking knew. It didn’t matter. All he knew was this was _bad_. 

The girl held her hands up defensively. "Whoa, calm down. I'm not- I'm friends with Kaikaina!" 

He narrowed his eyes at her accusingly. He didn't trust her. “She doesn’t go by that name anymore. Who are you really?”

She sighed heavily. This guy was almost as dramatic as his sister. “I’m friends with Kai, then.”

“I still don’t trust you.”

“You’re under no obligation to. I'm Tanya, by the way." She said, offering a hand. 

He didn’t take it. "How do you know my sister?" 

"Well..." _I’m a psychology student at the local university and once she showed up in my dorm room I couldn’t resist._ It seemed that ran in the family. “She slept with my roommate.”

“Oh.”

“In my bed.”

“Oh.”

“She said it was more kinky.”

“Yeah. That’s her.”

“She’s… nice.” That wasn’t a lie, exactly. She’d never been _rude_. Intentionally.

"What are you doing here?" Grif asked, apparently not over his lack of trust of her. She noted that before replying.

"Buying groceries?"

"How do you know me?"

"Kai was telling me about her brother's vendetta against double stuffed Oreos. I figured there were small chances of there being two." 

"They throw off the equilibrium!" He protested. 

"Sure." She said. “But I’m actually busy. And you should probably pick up your change.”

That snapped his attention away from his suspicions. He got to the floor, picking up his coins before anyone else could come along and steal them.

“See you around, Dex.” Tanya said hurrying away before he could remember that her two dollars was amongst that money somewhere.

“Yeah. Whatever.” He said too focused on his task to tell her that only his sister called him that. He didn’t know it at the time but that would never be true again.

  
  


~~

As he slept his dreams took him farther and farther back, uncoiling all his work to suppress the days as they passed him. The day before he left, the first time he met Tanya, it continued from there until soon his subconscious was reflecting on even the day his mother disappeared for good and the day his sister had begged him to ask their mother who their dad was. They were things he hadn’t thought of in years and things he didn’t care to think of ever again. 

Today it seemed his mind had not gotten that memo.

  
  


~~

  
  


Dexter Grif had never known his father. This never bothered him like people seemed to think it should. As far as he could tell having a father was over rated. One extra person to tell him what to do, that he was too old for naps, and that he shouldn’t be eating that? No thank you. The best thing about his mom was how rarely she did any of that. Why should he want some guy coming in and fucking up a perfectly good system? Though, when he thought of it, the chances that his mom actually knew someone that responsible were pretty thin.

He knew that his sister and him had different fathers. He’d been twelve when she’d been conceived, after all, and just a room away in a house with walls that were as thin as paper. Kaikaina didn’t know this but he found no reason to tell her. Her dad had been an _asshole_ and if she wanted to ignore how unlikely the fact was that after twelve years of having disappeared he showed up to bang their mom one last time and then leave again then that was her mountain of disappointment to make for herself. She was only six years old, however, so he thought he could cut her some slack.

She begged and begged him to ask their mom about him, terrified she wouldn’t tell her because she was too young. He considered telling her to fuck off and that he didn’t care but something in her face stopped him from being able to bring himself to. He hated the power that she held over him. He had prided himself on his ability to not give a shit about almost anything but then _she_ came along. 

There was a reason he was almost twenty and still living at home. And it wasn’t just because he was too lazy to find himself another place to live or that he’d dropped out of high school severely crippling his ability to find a job. He wasn’t the most emotionally well adjusted person in the world but he wasn’t a _monster_. He knew how well the kid would be taken care of and she seemed to need a _lot_ more care than he ever had. Or at least, a lot more than he could remember. 

Telling himself that it was to get her to shut up and stop whining he stormed up to his mother and asked her why she’d never mentioned his dad, demanding to know who he was. The story she gave was pretty vague and when he asked again later that same day he found the story had changed. In the end he concluded that their mother couldn’t even remember the guy’s name. _Oh well._ He thought, _at least I tried_. It’s not like he was up to the effort of finding him anyway. 

Still, he wished he had _something_ to say to comfort his sister. She wasn’t like him. She cared too much. So he made something up.

“He’s a secret agent.” He told her. “Mom said she couldn’t tell me any more than that. His boss wouldn’t like it if he knew about us so he can’t show up very often. He only likes his guys doing stuff for him when he tells them to.”

“Secret agent?” She asked, starry eyed.

“That’s right. Some kind of freelancer.” 

“Freelancer?”

“Yeah. Like a mercenary. A gun for hire.” 

“Cooollllllll.” She said in awe, completely oblivious to the contradicting ideas of him being a gun for hire _and_ a part of an organization that did only what their boss man said. 

It probably wasn’t right of him to lie to her but he could really care less if it meant that he didn’t have to deal with her crying. In truth, he kind of liked the thought of it himself. Spies and mercenaries are totally badass and secretly, the idea that their dad was off somewhere, actually caring about their safety and trying to protect them… it wasn’t a bad one. Kaikaina deserved somebody that was worthwhile. Someone who could care for her properly. God knows she didn’t have someone like that now.

Their mother wasn’t around all that often and so the duty fell to him, mostly. It was a reluctant duty but he performed it nonetheless. She was a pain in the ass and he was repulsed by responsibility but he wasn’t going to let her _starve_ because of it. He might not have done a perfect job but she was alive and didn’t seem _too_ crazy. He figured that was good enough. Better than his mom’s attempts for sure. _She_ hadn’t even checked her baby’s sex before naming her. 

Not long after he turned twenty their mother disappeared for good. She just left one day and never came home. It wasn’t rare for her to be gone for days at a time so he wasn’t worried. By the time he realized that she wasn’t likely coming back he found that life was actually a lot easier when he wasn’t trying to work his way around her. 

He never called the cops. They wouldn’t care. Why would they waste their time and efforts on some poor native prostitute with a son old enough to legally care for her daughter? He’d just waste all their time and frighten his sister. For all he knew she’d ran away on purpose. 

It took Kai a month to notice that she wasn’t coming back this time. When she did that’s what he told her, adding a lie to the mix. He told her that she’d ran away with the intent of joining the circus. He laughed to himself about this. She’d always been a child (it ran in the Grif family, it would seem), it only made sense that she’d gone on to pursue a child’s fairy tale.

She cried for hours, heart broken at the abandonment. He wondered if telling her the truth would have been any better. He doubted it. He told her that, really, she should be flattered. Their mom was talented enough to be the fat one _and_ the bearded lady! Missing the sarcasm, she became genuinely impressed and it satisfied him well enough that she was no longer crying.

It became their little inside joke. Whenever his sister seemed down he would do the actions of her pretend job, shifting his own weight around in the most awkward manner he could muster. It made her laugh, and she told him that their mom didn’t look like that. She was a professional. She was good at her job. He’d laugh and tell her that, yeah. She was probably right.

She took up gymnastics in inspiration and planned on finding which circus she belonged to. She’d see their mom in action and show her all that she’d learned in hopes that she’d be proud of her. He didn’t know what to do with that.

Whenever anyone asked where their parents were they dodged questions of their father (Kai was intent on keeping his secret) but they boasted freely of their mother’s trade. No one could tell if they were being serious (except for Tanya). To Grif it didn’t matter. They _were_ right, for all they knew.

  
  


~~

  
  


“Are you _crying_?” He asked his sister incredulously when he met her at the bus stop after her first day of school. Kaikaina just pursed her lips, glaring, the way she did whenever he called her out on her crying.

“You do realize that you don’t actually stop crying when you do that, right?” 

She hauled off and punched him, little fists beating rhythmically against his arm. Even as a child she packed a punch. Especially when the hits were in repeated succession. 

“Ow, ow, okay, geeze! Quit it! Just tell me why you’re crying!” 

She punched him once more for good measure and then crossed her arms, pouting. 

He stared at her waiting for an answer but none came. 

“What?” Silence. “I can’t ask, I can’t make fun of you. Geeze, you’re boring. Guess I’ll just leave you here to die alone.”

“No!” She wailed, turning again, as if to hit him.

He caught her arm this time. “Okay, then tell me what the fuck happened.” 

She crossed her arms again and glared angrily. “They made fun of me.” She muttered.

“Yeah, kids are monsters.” He agreed. Her glare darkened and he sighed. “Okay. Why were they making fun of you?”

“My name.”

“What about it?”

“My teacher thought I was a _boy_.”

“What does that have anything to do with it?”

“It means I’m your brother!”

“What does?”

“My name!”

He blinked at her a second. “Wait, really?” She nodded sullenly and he started laughing. She attacked him again and it took a minute for him to calm down and get her off him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He called, “Uncle! I surrender!” 

She slowed to a stop and sat herself down on the ground, put her face in her hands, and again started crying. Dexter sighed deeply and took a seat next to her.

God he hated it when she did that.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” He said. 

“No you’re not!” She wailed.

“Well I want you to stop crying.” 

That didn’t stop her. He sighed again.

“Look, we can change your name. Okay?”

“How?” She asked.

“We can call you Kai now. That just means ocean, right?”

“I don’t know.” She said miserably.

“Well, whatever. At least it doesn’t mean that, right?”

“I guess.” 

“Okay then. Kai it is.”

“What about you?”

“What _about_ me?”

“Aren’t you gonna change your name too?”

“What? Why?”

“Because, stupid!” She shouted. He didn’t point out that that wasn’t really a reason. 

“You’re Dex now.” She decided.

He shrugged. “Okay. Whatever.” 

She had stopped crying now and was smiling at him. “Dexter was a stupid name anyway.” 

“Hey now. Your name still makes you my little brother.”

“No it doesn’t. You changed it, remember?”

He rolled his eyes at her. “Yeah, okay. No one really calls me Dexter anyway.” 

“Why not?” She asked him.

He shrugged. “Everyone just calls me by my last name.”

“Grif?”

“No, Schwarzenegger. What do you think?” 

She glared at him. “Why?” 

“How am I supposed to know?” 

“It’s probably because your name sounds stupid.”

“My name’s Dex now, remember?” He mocked.

She shrugged. “It’s still pretty stupid.”

He gave her a look. “Get out of here.” He said, making as if he was getting ready to chase her. She bounced to her feet and ran off giggling.

“Geeze.” He muttered to himself, picking himself up laboriously and walking along after her at his regular slow pace. “My name isn’t _that_ stupid. I could have been called Dick, or something.” 

She enforced her new name for years after the fact. She was Kai, nothing else, till she turned thirteen and declared that having just one gender was boring and kind of stupid anyway. By then she was in the habit of telling her brother too much or nothing at all and it took meeting Tanya for him to learn that she’d taken her old name back up again. 

He had told her she could wear his clothes if she did the laundry. This satisfied her well enough. And him too. Just one less thing for him to do.

She’d been that way her whole life, Kaikaina. Deciding things like that seemingly out of nowhere. From the day she was born to the moment that he left. He wondered distantly if there was anything she could do that would surprise him and then immediately regretted tempting fate.

He was still convinced that fate had some sort of bounty on him. And Kaikaina. … Well. It was not yet clear whether or not she took fate into her own hands or if fate just liked to play with her too.

Regardless of which she certainly kept him busy.

  
  


~~

  
  


Grif tossed and turned, uneasy in his sleep. Subconsciously he was feeling guilty. The further into his memories he delved the more the deepest consciences of his brain began to realize how relieved he’d been to no longer need to spend that energy keeping up with her. To no longer have to take care of her.

Before she was born he’d been responsible for his mother and then, these past eighteen years, her too. But now his only responsibility was to a team full of assholes that were in under much less danger than he’d ever been breaking the law at home to keep food in his refrigerator. 

In comparison he _had_ no responsibility. And no Tanya to remind him of all that relied on him, too.

He opened his eyes to find that that feeling he couldn’t place earlier had receded. His exhaustion had tempered itself to its usual levels of fatigue. He could no longer tell whether or not he missed home. He sighed in relief that his sleep had effectively patched his holes. He was as good as new again. Back to ignoring his past, not caring, and never thinking too deeply.

Deep down, though, there was a thought that he’d never had before, a thought that he’d never notice had formed- For the first time in his life he felt the freedom to do nothing and genuinely not care. For the first time in his life he could be the child that he had never gotten to be. 

_Who would have thought that conscription could make you feel so free?_

  



End file.
